Upgrades planned at Collins Park Water Treatment Plant

At the Collins Park Water Treatment Plant, chemists and engineers transform Lake Erie water into drinking water for nearly 500,000 people. Fish are removed and contaminants are purged — including enemy No. 1, the toxin microcystin that comes from the blue-green algae clogging the lake. It was concern surrounding those microcystins that caused a “no-drink” water advisory for the Toledo region Aug. 2-4.

Soon after, the Collins Park Water Treatment Plant came under scrutiny when the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency claimed it had plans to take over operations if the city failed to improve the plant’s conditions. It seemed the 73-year-old plant was to take at least partial blame for Mayor D. Michael Collins’ administration’s failure to protect the city’s drinking water.

But city officials refute that, saying it was a harmful algal bloom at the water intake site, not conditions at the plant, that caused the advisory.

That’s why McClure and program manager Warren Henry wanted to give the media a tour inside the plant, built in 1941, to show reporters that walls are not falling down, paint isn’t peeling and all filters and pumps are working properly. They want Toledoans to know their tax dollars are hard at work bringing safe drinking water to their taps.

“We want to be good stewards of public funds,” Henry said Aug. 28.

The plant is slated to undergo millions of dollars of repairs and an expansion. Officials are looking into ways to combat the algae, but wouldn’t specify what new technology they would use. Overall, they were optimistic that the plant would be operating for many years to come.

Treatment process

In Lake Erie, raw water enters what’s called an intake crib through 16 underwater ports. The intake crib is 83 feet in diameter, 24 feet below the surface of the lake and two and a half miles offshore.

The water travels from there to a pump, which sends the water eight miles to the Collins Park Water Treatment Plant. The water has been in pipes from Lake Erie up until it reaches the chemical feed room at the plant.

Here, chemicals are added, including activated carbon, aluminum sulfate, potassium permanganate, chlorine and fluoride to soften the water and remove contaminants.

From the chemical feed room, the water flows to the flocculation and sedimentation rooms. Here, residue is removed as large particles bond and fall to the bottom of the basin and fine material that doesn’t settle is filtered out. At this point, the water looks good enough to drink but isn’t safe yet, Henry said.

The water, which had been open to the air since entering the plant, now flows into pipes below ground level. This piping is 30-50 years old, Henry said, and is slated for upgrades.

The water flows from the pipes to water reservoirs, then high-service pumps send it through the distribution system and finally to customers’ faucets.

The administrators of the system call it a “barrier” system, in which several safeguards are put in place to protect the water, beginning with the chemicals added at the low-service pumping station where contaminants such as fish are removed to the high -service pumping station at the end of the line where filters continue to remove contaminates before pumps move it to customers.

Cost of repairs, expansion

Administrators during the tour discussed “improvement costs” to the plant, totaling about $264 million over five years. Some of those expenditures include $1.7 million for structural repairs at the intake crib, about $30 million for pump upgrades, $37 million for filtration improvements and about $100 million in basin upgrades.

“It’s easy to throw away the old,” Henry said. “Just because something has aged doesn’t mean you throw it away. Repairs can last a long time.”

Improvement costs for Collin Park Water Treatment Plant. Click to enlarge. Photo courtesy City of Toledo.

Media members asked whether it would be more cost-effective to build a brand-new facility. Henry likened the plant to an automobile.

“I don’t believe in buying a new car because it needs a new set of brakes,” he said.

During the tour, it was evident that the building was old but in good repair, at least cosmetically. The ceiling that hangs over the open drinking water looked clean and fresh with shiny gray paint. The new roof has been worked on in sections and is nearing completion, McClure said.

The age of the structure was apparent in art deco filtration control panels, which are no longer in use.

“We’re rehabbing everything and with the new addition, we’ll get another 70 years,” Henry said. “I have no hesitation saying this at all.”

McClure and Henry discussed the expansion while standing on the location of the planned site, saying the “redundant expansion” will give them a potential 160-million-gallon capacity. Currently, they are using a 120-million-gallon system — six treatment basins, each with a 20-million-gallon capacity.

The expansion will allow portions of the plant to be shut down for heavy maintenance instead of trying to make repairs in a working section of the plant or having to wait until winter when water use is lower, McClure said.

The repairs will be phased in within the next four years and the expansion is about two years out, they said.

“We’ve operated this facility successfully for 70 years,” Henry said. “We’re the only plant for the area.”

In other costs, the treatment plant is paying about $1.7 million more for chemical treatments since the algae crisis, administrators said. They have a $3 million to $4 million budget for chemicals.

Administrators say they do not know how much they’re going to use because they can’t predict the condition of the lake water. The chemical budget for this past year was $4.7 million, which won’t change despite the conditions of the lake, because they have a three-year contract with suppliers.

The algae

Administrators are looking to technology to deal with the algae.

They said there are a number of different options they could use at the plant to protect the water against microcystin, including membranes, ozone or granulated carbon. They are looking at augmenting the chemical and/or the filtration process. Henry called these options “barriers,” and said they are not just concerned about the microcystin but about all contaminants.

“We hope to have another barrier by next year,” Henry said.

In the meantime, McClure said the plant, with its chemists, engineers and 30 licensed operators, is working in partnership with the Ohio EPA.

“Everyone has their role to play and we’re working hand-in-hand,” he said.

When a toxin was detected in Toledo’s drinking water last week, triggering a do not drink advisory affecting up to half a million people, it was called a crisis, a disaster and a nightmare.

Toledo Free Press photo by Christie Materni

It’s also being called a game changer, a tipping point and an eye-opener.

Toxic algae in Lake Erie is not new. Scientists have been studying it for decades and environmentalists and politicians have been raising the alarm for years, only to be largely ignored.

Western Lake Erie Waterkeeper Sandy Bihn is one of those who has been pushing for action.

“This is like my worst nightmare, not being able to drink the water,” Bihn said. “But maybe it’s an opportunity to find the solutions we need.”

Last year, Carroll Township in Ottawa County issued a water advisory after detecting unsafe levels of microcystin in its water; the same toxin caused Toledo’s issue.

“After Carroll Township, I thought there would be major changes, but there were not,” Bihn said. “That was the first time in Ohio, but [Toledo] is kind of the unthinkable — a major city. That was 2,000 people; this is half a million. I’m hoping the scale will begin to inspire the changes we need. We need to keep the pressure on.”

A microcosm of Lake Erie is Grand Lake St. Marys State Park in west-central Ohio, hit hard by algae the past three years, resulting in lost tourism, recreation and business, Bihn said.

“The thing about Grand Lake St. Marys that people should look at is … year after year it’s gotten earlier and worse. So once this stuff gets in your watershed it seems to be a devil to get rid of,” she said.

Lake Erie, the shallowest and warmest of the Great Lakes, is the most susceptible to algae blooms and the “dead zones” they can cause.

Algae growth peaked in the 1970s, when measures were taken to control the problem. By the mid-1980s, phosphorus loadings had been reduced by more than half and the lake’s recovery was a globally known success story, according to a report released in February by the International Joint Commission.

However, by the early 2000s problems with excess nutrient enrichment appeared again in Lake Erie, and have continued to worsen.

Algae has again been a major issue in Lake Erie since about 2003, with the worst year in 2011.

The blue-green algae that can be seen lapping many of western Lake Erie’s beaches is called cyanobacteria, which contains the toxin microcystin. When the cyanobacteria dies it splits apart, dumping its toxic load, referred to as lysed. Whole, or unlysed, cyanobacteria is still dangerous to drink because it will break open during digestion.

Municipal sewage plants were the primary sources of phosphorus runoff into Lake Erie in the decades leading up to the 1970s. Today, it comes mainly from “nonpoint” sources, such as runoff from fertilized farm fields, over-applied manure, lawn and garden activities, construction activities and more, all exacerbated by natural effects like sunlight, warm temperatures, rainfall and more.

Both natural and chemical fertilizers contain high levels of phosphorus, which encourage growth of crops — and algae. One problem today, Bihn said, is that there are still excessive levels of phosphorus found in sediment, so even if new runoff could be held to zero, there would still be algae problems in the lake for years.

“In many cases we just don’t have good data,” Bihn said. “We really don’t know where we’re at or how much we’re gaining or losing on this problem. We really need an annual report card.”

New technology

One local company that could help find a solution is Blue Water Satellite, a startup founded in 2009 in Bowling Green and now based at the University of Toledo’s LaunchPad Incubation Program. CEO Milt Baker said he agrees with Bihn that a report card is needed, but points out one already exists — in the form of satellite images.

n National wildlife federation President and CEO Collin o’Mara points to an algal bloom in Western Lake Erie near the city of Toledo’s Water intake facility. Toledo Free Press photo by Sarah Ottney

Baker and his team use patented algorithms to extract digital data embedded in satellite images to track phosphorus and the growth of harmful algal blooms. Similar technology is utilized by the federal government, military and some universities, but Baker believes Blue Water is the only for-profit company using it.

Satellite images over the past 20 years show western Lake Erie getting “nothing but worse,” he said.

“We’ve tried a lot of things and now is the time to try new things because Lake Erie treatments have not produced the results that people expected,” Baker said. “We need to start looking at new technology.”

The goal is early detection and efficient sampling. The traditional method of scooping a water sample and testing it at a lab gives researchers a single data point; looking at a satellite image offers 200,000 data points per satellite sweep, Baker said.

“What we say we’re doing at Blue Water is we move the lab to the sky,” Baker said. “Five to 10 years from now no one will ever do it that way.”

Unlike many other countries, testing for microcystin is not mandated by the state or U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

“You have to give Toledo credit because a lot of these water bodies are not even looking for the toxin,” Baker said. “In America we only react to crises. We don’t worry about prevention. It was always a theoretical thing that the toxins could get in the water and we might have to shut the water down.

“Now you have a major metropolitan area with 500,000 people that can’t use water. That’s a totally different perspective. So I think things are going to be completely different from here on out. I might be totally wrong, but I think as a result of this we’re going to see federal regulation and we’re going to pay a lot more attention to it.”

Environmentalists

National Wildlife Federation President and CEO Collin O’Mara happened to be in Michigan near Lake Huron when Toledo issued its water advisory. He decided to check it out for himself.

On Aug. 3, he and Bihn took a boat three miles off shore to Toledo’s water intake facility, where he examined a glass of water scooped from the lake, thick with green algae from top to bottom. Such stratified algae can’t simply be skimmed off the surface, making it more complicated to clean up, O’Mara said.

Bihn said she was surprised the algae was so thick so early in the algae season, especially considering that July was cool and dry.

“If it was 100 degrees I don’t know how we would deal with that,” Bihn said. “Boy, when it explodes in hot temperatures, that’s a scary thought. We really need to get ahead of this.”

Toledo’s recent crisis was caused by a perfect storm of excess nutrients exacerbated by environmental conditions.

“There’s a systemic challenge that we face here in the Great Lakes that’s actually much bigger than this one crisis,” O’Mara said. “And unfortunately, this crisis could just be the tip of the iceberg unless we begin to address it.”

O’Mara said although algae is a known problem, it can be hard to predict or control.

“The turning points can happen fairly quickly and all of a sudden you’ll see these fairly broad explosions, where you kind of hit a tipping point and then all of a sudden you have a challenge,” he said.

Bihn called Lake Erie’s algae a “warning sign” for the other Great Lakes, which sometimes appear healthier because they are deeper and appear bluer.

“What happens here will happen to the rest of the Great Lakes,” Bihn said. “Here, the lake turns over every 2.6 years. Other lakes are like 75 to 100 years so once it gets there it’s really too late. If we can solve the problem here, they can get ahead of it.”

To have a freshwater drinking supply impacted so extensively by something other than a single industrial disaster is rare, O’Mara said.

“It wasn’t a single facility that failed that caused this event. This is a series of individual decisions over many, many years,” he said. “The work we do today isn’t going to actually solve this problem overnight. It’s going to take years of this work to try to reduce the amount.

“If we don’t get a handle on these problems, folks are going to start having questions about whether it’s safe to enjoy the incredible recreation that is all around us in Lake Erie,” he said.

“It’s going to be a huge challenge that Toledo can actually lead on,” O’Mara said. “What you do here in response to this crisis could become a bit of a national model. Folks are struggling with these algae challenges in a lot of places. If we can figure out how to solve this issue right here in Ohio we can create a model that can be replicated across the country.”

Timeline

The first inkling something was amiss started with an elevated microcystin reading at Collins Park Water Treatment Plant between 5:30 and 6 p.m. Aug. 1. Although the reading of 0.6 microgram per liter was still within the acceptable level of 1.0 microgram per liter for safe drinking water, the city contacted the Ohio EPA, which advised more testing. That test came back around midnight and the city issued a do not drink advisory around 1:30 a.m. Aug. 2.

In all, about 500,000 people were affected by the advisory as Toledo’s Department of Public Utilities provides drinking water to 125,000 residential, commercial and industrial accounts in Lucas, Wood, Fulton and Monroe counties.

Around 9:30 a.m. Aug. 2, Collins said additional tests had been ordered and urged residents to remain calm.

At 11:40 a.m., the Toledo-Lucas County Health Department recommended restaurant and food facilities using city water close. Throughout the day, amid reports of price gouging and bottled water shortages, water distribution points were organized by both public and private entities.

At 9:15 a.m. Aug. 3, Collins announced test results were still delayed. “Factual info will be relayed when we have it,” he posted to Twitter. Ohio Gov. John Kasich arrived in town that afternoon.

Throughout the day, test results were promised and then delayed with little explanation, causing frustration for many residents. At 3 a.m. Aug. 4, Collins said two of 30 tests came back “too close for comfort.” He said the two could be anomalies, but wanted to be sure and wouldn’t “isolate part of the city” by lifting the advisory for anyone until he was sure it was safe for everyone. The two areas were later reported as East Toledo and Point Place.

“The majority of areas are satisfactory, but we still have two spots of concern,” he said. “I’m not going to take any chances with this community’s well-being and health.”

At 9:30 a.m. Aug. 4, Collins announced the final tests had come back clean and the advisory was lifted.

“Our water is safe,” he said, before sipping a glass of tap water. “Here’s to you, Toledo. You did a great job.”

New standard

Toledo City Councilwoman Lindsay Webb, chair of the Utilities & Public Service Committee, said the advisory forced city, state and federal officials into “uncharted scientific territory.”

“Before this happened there was no agreement on how to accurately test for this toxin,” Webb said.

Collins said the Ohio EPA, the U.S. EPA and other agencies were initially “territorial.” Each used its own testing methodology, yielding different and confusing results, he said, but in the end they came to a consensus for a standard test, which will now be implemented throughout the state.

“I’m absolutely convinced we have set the stage for what will now be the state standard related to how to test for this particular toxin as well as laid the foundation for what I believe will be pending USDA regulations related to his particular toxin,” Webb told City Council on Aug. 4.

“Unfortunately, it took a disaster to get us to that point,” said Department of Public Utilities Director Ed Moore.

The two-and-a-half-day situation cost the city an estimated $207,000, said City Finance Director George Sarantou, which includes $73,000 for Department of Public Utilities overtime pay, $52,000 for Department of Public Services overtime pay, $48,000 Toledo Police Department overtime pay, $10,000 in Sheriff’s Department overtime pay and $10,000 to fly water samples to Cincinnati, Columbus and Michigan’s Upper Peninsula for testing. [Editor's Note: City's estimated cost has been updated with new figures.]

That’s not including costs from the Ohio Department of Transportation, the Lucas County Sheriff’s Office or the cost of flying samples out of the city to testing sites in Cincinnati, Columbus and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

Lucas County Health Commissioner Dr. David Grossman said reports of illness Aug. 2 were “a little elevated but nothing outside the ordinary,” but quickly returned to normal levels.

Between Aug. 2-5, Mercy and ProMedica health systems reported a total of 229 cases of nausea, vomiting and diarrhea, although hospital spokespeople said it’s not possible to conclusively link the cases specifically to water ingestion.

On Aug. 4, the Lucas County Commissioners started the process of applying for government aid by retroactively declaring a state of emergency for Lucas County. If approved, local governments and businesses could be reimbursed for costs.

Commissioner Carol Contrada sees the crisis as a timely “window of opportunity” to restart discussions among jurisdictions about ways to make the regional water system more efficient and equitable.

“We have several proposals that have been developed and haven’t really been seriously looked at by all the participants because they are relatively new,” Contrada said. “There have been a lot of other things that have taken precedence, but now this is a very timely report.”

On Aug. 5, officials announced one of the Collins Water Treatment Plant’s six flocculators — paddles that mix water drawn from Lake Erie with chemical treatments — was broken. Moore said the damage occurred after the water advisory was lifted and played no role in the advisory. He also insisted the damage was not caused by stress on the system after the advisory was lifted.

Political response

Lucas County Commissioner Pete Gerken called the water advisory a “clarion call.”

“The plant wasn’t the problem; the lake is the problem. We have not for a decade collectively, as a country or a community, addressed the assault on Lake Erie that’s been going on,” Gerken said. “If this isn’t a clarion call … I don’t know what is.”

“It’s a wake-up call because it alerts people across the entire region as to the condition of our lake and how we are all connected to it — our lives depend on it,” said Kaptur, a ranking member on the House Subcommittee on Energy and Water.

The water intake facility for the City of Toledo is three miles off-shore in Lake Erie. Toledo Free Press photo by Sarah Ottney

One solution Kaptur advocates: Push more money into the Western Lake Erie Basin (WLEB) partnership. The partnership is a conservation group formed in 2006 by the USDA and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers comprised of local, state, regional and federal groups who track the Lake Erie watershed and look for solutions to its problems.

The WLEB partnership needs more funding, political power and authority to carry out its work, Kaptur said. The partnership could use more water monitoring devices, for example, that track the flow of water. When the flow is reduced, algae blooms grow.

Kaptur said she has told state officials, including Kasich, about the WLEB partnership and the need to expand it; however, the governor has a lot of catching up to do, she said.

“He doesn’t come from this part of the state, so we have a lot of learning to do,” Kaptur said.

Kasich said the state will conduct an investigation into what happened in Toledo, which includes taking a look at the city’s aging water treatment system and figuring out how to reduce pollution that feeds the algae in the western end of Lake Erie.

Asked if Kasich planned to sponsor any new legislation in light of the recent crisis, press secretary Robert Nichols wrote in an email: “The governor always refers to Lake Erie as Ohio’s crown jewel, and as such, we have implemented a number of new, strict policies to better protect it. When it comes to the lake, we remain vigilant, and as we do our after-action review of the events in Toledo, we’ll be looking for any new ways and ideas to continue to improve policies that impact the lake.”

Sen. Rob Portman talked to reporters during a conference call Aug. 4, five hours after Toledo’s no drink advisory was lifted. He said the first step toward a solution is to identify how elevated toxic levels entered Toledo’s water supply in the first place, calling for more federal oversight and continued cooperation among all levels of government.

Portman then pointed to a bill he co-authored last year, the “Harmful Algal Blooms and Hypoxia Research and Control Amendments Act of 2013,” which calls on federal agencies to make Lake Erie algae blooms a “priority,” from monitoring and research to reduction efforts.

“This legislation takes critical steps toward protecting Lake Erie and Grand Lake St. Marys from harmful algae that has become a tremendous problem for fresh water bodies in our state,” Portman said last year. “For the first time, we will prioritize the protection of Ohio’s fresh bodies of water, which is critical for our tourism and fishing industries.”

Portman called on the EPA and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to develop an action plan to foresee, control and reduce the algae blo

oms. He said NOAA has the ability to use satellite technology to view the algae and could use this technology to predict and prevent the algae blooms as well as pin-point cause and effect.

“It can be a bipartisan issue,” Portman said. “It’s a complicated issue. That’s why it’s critical we have the very best science to come up with the best information on why these blooms are happening. And that we are using the right technology.”

Asked whether there would be any additional federal regulation, Portman said there needed to be further study.

The federal government may be passing legislation and looking at the problem, but that isn’t enough, some local officials have criticized. Collins’ administration has come out shouting that higher-up officials have been making promises they haven’t been able to keep in regards to cleaning up the lake.

“I don’t think it’s any question that this crisis has elevated the concern,” Ohio Sen. Randy Gardner said in response to the criticism. “People have a right to be frustrated and upset about what happened and we need to answer every question and do everything we humanly can to see it doesn’t happen again.”

It’s still unclear how microcystic toxins showed up in Toledo’s water supply and those questions need to be answered, Gardner said. In the meantime, he is investigating whether other plants in the region need to improve their systems to prevent a similar crisis.

A day after the advisory was lifted, Gardner visited treatment plants in Sandusky, Oregon and Port Clinton. People are still asking the question, ‘Is my drinking water safe to drink?’ he said.

“It’s not all about Toledo: We’ve got Oregon, Carroll Township, Huron, Sandusky, all within my Senate district. We need to care about every treatment plant,” Gardner said.

If there is a way to test lake water before it reaches the intake to the treatment plant we should be doing so, Gardner said. That would tell us sooner whether the water has toxins from an algae bloom and treatment could begin. Gardner is currently working with the EPA to provide funds to treatment plants so they can afford such preventative testing.

In January, state lawmakers unanimously passed Senate Bill 150, which aims to reduce the amount of nutrient runoff that is a major cause of algal blooms. Farms of 50 or more noncontiguous acres would have to get state certification to apply chemical fertilizer. However, the rules laid out in the bill will not be mandatory until 2017 and it does not regulate manure as a fertilizer on frozen ground.

State Rep. Michael Sheehy tried to introduce an amendment that would have acknowledged manure as a fertilizer, but there was no support for it and it failed to pass, he said. Sheehy hasn’t given up, though, and is currently looking for a co-sponsor.

“Green” farmers have been cooperative and responsive with limiting the amounts of fertilizer they use; however there are some “bad actors” out there, Sheehy said. So-called CAFO farms — concentrated animal feeding operations — are the biggest culprits, he said.

“It’s like a farm factory — enormous amounts of pigs and chicken,” Sheehy said. “They’re trying to maximize the number of product that can be developed on the minimum amount of land and resources. One of the byproducts is a bad thing — it is excess amounts of manure.”

Western Lake Erie Waterkeeper Sandy Bihn, left, and National Wildlife Federation President and CEO Collin O’Mara with a glass of water scooped out of Lake Erie in the heart of the algae bloom near the City of Toledo’s water intake facility three miles off short. Toledo Free Press photo by Sarah Ottney

Rains wash manure into the water basin and from there into Lake Erie, where algae forms. It’s a problem that has been identified but these farms have not been cooperative in reducing their manure, Sheehy said.

“State government is going to do something very serious and very effective and very long-standing to correct the phosphorus load in the Maumee River region,” he said.

“This crisis has brought into focus for people in this region how fragile Lake Erie is, and simply put, you can’t continue to abuse the lake when you depend on it as your lifeblood,” said Kaptur spokesman Steve Fought. “This didn’t happen overnight but by the same token we have no reason to believe that it will markedly improve overnight. It’s like that Joni Mitchell song: ‘You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.’”

Toledo City Councilman Larry Sykes said there have been a lot of questions and “balls in the air” since the advisory. Mayor Collins plans to form a committee, Sykes said, but the issues are nothing new.

“How long have you been talking about it? Twenty years? And it hasn’t rung a bell?” Sykes asked Sheehy on Aug. 3. “I think that bell has been rung.”

Sykes said Toledo has been “ducking a bullet” for years.

“We have known for 20 years or more that we’ve had a problem with our water system and algae. We’ve known that,” Sykes said. “I go back to a couple years ago, we tried to address this problem then and [Council] was voted down. [Former Mayor Carty] Finkbeiner fought with the EPA and the city lost and we were forced to go out and build a new water system. We’ve been dealing with water for God knows how long now. If we had looked at this earlier, it would have been less costly.”

The city is approaching the final leg of a $521 million sewage project called the Toledo Waterways Initiative. The initiative began in 2003 after a decade of litigation between the city and the federal government for Clean Water Act violations. The violations are against the city for decades of sewage spills into the Maumee River, Ottawa River, Swan Creek and other tributaries that feed into western Lake Erie.

Sykes said a big problem is the antiquated system in Toledo. Collins Park Treatment Plant is at least 80 years old, he said.

While acknowledging the issue is a difficult one, Collins promised he wouldn’t let it drop.

“This is not the simplest of all issues. It is a problem that is really created by a variety of things. There’s no one simple answer to it,” Collins said. “It’s going to take the best science, it’s going to take the best engineering and it’s going to take political will. I can’t, seven days from now, look back over at this weekend and say, ‘That was then and this is now,’ and go on to my new problem. This is my problem and I fully intend to engage.”

But environmentalists like Bihn and O’Mara hope politicians do more than just talk or haphazardly allocate more money.

“This isn’t just passing a law or finding a little bit of money, this is actually having folks across the region think about the contributions they are making,” O’Mara said. “A lot of these folks might live miles away from the water itself but that extra fertilizer you’re putting on to get your grass just the right color, that’s contributing to this problem.”

Farmers

No one disputes runoff from farms is one major cause of algae growth. However, many farmers, like fourth-generation Northwest Ohio farmer Todd Kapp, 27, were left feeling “a little aggravated” by online commentary during the advisory blaming farmers alone.

Most farmers strive to be environmentally responsible, said Kapp, who farms with his father Robert and brother Joe in the Curtice area.

“Why would a farmer want to waste their hard-earned money by ‘dumping’ fertilizer into the ditches?” he posted to his wife’s Facebook page Aug. 4. “Lets not just blame the farmers here. EVERYONE including the farmer, city guy and everyone in between needs to step up and help fix this problem.

“Our farm has been soil sampling for several years,” Kapp wrote. “We variable rate our fertilizer and place [it] where it needs it. We plant cover crops, we use no-tillage practices when we can. We do not spread fertilizer or manure on frozen ground. I am not saying every farm does this, however every farm has the opportunity to work with local soil & water conservation district like we do to implement better practices on farms.”

Reached by phone, Kapp said his livelihood is tied to the land so he wants to protect it and preserve it for the fifth generation, including his 2-year-old son.

“Some aren’t as aggressive with it, but I’d say in general everyone is trying to do their share,” Kapp said. “There are a few farmers that still fertilize [with the old methods] and aren’t into the cover crops. They don’t see the benefit, but maybe this will help open their eyes.”

Mike Libben, district program administrator with Ottawa Soil and Water Conservation District, said he’s seeing growing interest from farmers in conservation programs.

One of the easiest methods to reduce farm runoff is the USDA’s Lake Erie Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program.

The program pays farmers to plant grass filter strips and buffers next to streams, rivers and drainage ditches on their property, creating a border between fields and water, he said.

In the past, farmers would apply a blanket amount of fertilizer to the whole field, sometimes enough to last several years. Today, variable rate technology — a process by which soil samples are taken and fertilizer applied only where needed — is rapidly becoming a standard procedure.

“Instead of putting 200 pounds of fertilizer across the whole field, you put only 25 pounds here, 300 here or nothing here,” Libben said. “It’s like a prescription for the field.

“Five years ago, it was a retailer here and there, but in the last few years it’s really ramped up and everybody’s using that technology. We’re definitely seeing more interest.”

The Western Lake Erie Watershed extends from Fort Wayne, Indiana, to the west, Sandusky Bay to the east, Findlay to the south and three lower Michigan townships to the north. It encompasses 6 million acres of land drained by the Maumee, Portage and Ottawa rivers, as well as the open waters of Maumee Bay.

“For farmers here around the lake, [conservation programs are] an easy sell,” Libben said. “The farther away from the lake, it’s out of sight, out of mind. They don’t have as close a tie as we do.

“If we held back every drop of fertilizer, we’d still have algae bloom. That sediment is in the lake already. Those conditions are already there. It’s going to take some time for the lake to heal itself,” Libben said. “Zero percent [runoff] will never happen, but we can do everything possible to minimize that. It’s been a wake-up call that we need to make some changes and do some work.

“I just want people to realize farmers aren’t doing anything intentionally. They are doing things they were taught over the years. Sometimes it’s just something else we need to be taught about and learn and change.”

The future

Could the crisis happen again?

“It’s not debatable. It absolutely could,” Moore said. “This is Mother Nature we’re dealing with. There is nothing we could have possibly done different that would have prevented this.”

Blooms will remain a threat until algae season is over, typically by late September. Officials have asked residents to use water conservatively until then.

“The slower we process the water, the greater the opportunity we give the chemicals that are involved to clean it out,” Collins said. “I don’t want to go through this again so I have to take a step of prevention in order to create a pound of cure.”

The city has increased the amount of activated carbon and chlorine added to water and is currently testing daily for microcystin. All levels have been undetectable.

The challenge will be fixing the problem, not just the symptoms, Gerken said.

“We can fix pipes. It’s going to take a whole lot of people and some time to fix a lake. And that’s where we’ve got to go now,” he said.

Everyone agrees making forward progress will require teamwork.

“The idea that any single entity can solve this problem is simply wrong,” O’Mara said. “We’re all going to have to do our part to get at these challenges and I’m absolutely confident the good people in this part of Ohio can come together and do just that.”

EPA seeks public input on new carbon pollution standards

An upcoming citizen hearing will provide the public with an opportunity to learn about new carbon pollution regulation for future power plants in the United States.

The event is an opportunity for anyone in the community to get involved in the discussion on climate change. It will be held in the McQuade Auditorium at the University of Toledo College of Law, 2801 W. Bancroft St. The hearing is expected to run from 7-8:30 p.m. Oct. 22.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is seeking comments from the public on the new carbon pollution regulations. The National Wildlife Federation and other partners in the “I Will #ActOnClimate” campaign are hosting hearings across the country to discuss why these standards are important by addressing the risks of climate change as well as talk about opportunities to counter climate change and solicit public comments for the EPA’s official record.

Frank Szollosi

“Last year, our efforts set a record,” said Frank Szollosi, the Great Lakes regional outreach coordinator for the National Wildlife Federation. “We solicited over 3 million public comments on the EPA’s efforts to regulate carbon pollution. This is a continuation of that.”

In June, President Barack Obama announced the country’s first-ever limit on carbon pollution for future power plants. According to the “I Will #ActOnClimate” campaign, the administration plans to release similar regulations next year for existing power plants.

The new standards will reduce the allowed emissions from future power plants to about what a natural gas-burning plant produces, Szollosi said. He said the regulations will prohibit the development of another plant like Bay Shore in Oregon, which doesn’t have carbon-capturing technology on its coal-burning unit.

“The coal companies are adamantly against this. It is going to stop the development of future coal-fired power plants in the U.S.,” Szollosi said. “But the fact of the matter is because natural gas is so cheap, even prior to the development of this rule, utilities have opted to use natural gas-burning plants, which are more efficient and cheaper than coal.”

Szollosi said there are other benefits that will come from the new standards and that the carbon-capturing technology needed for existing plants like Bay Shore is currently being developed.

“This new rule will provide the impetus to greater innovation and greater technological investment,” he said.

A toxic Microcystis bloom washes up on the shore of Maumee Bay in western Lake Erie on Aug. 29, 2011. Photo by Sandy Bihn, Western Lake Erie Waterkeeper.

Szollosi said pollution from the power sector in the U.S. is responsible for 40 percent of total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions causing climate change. Requiring future plants to have a smaller carbon footprint can help reduce the threats of climate change locally and worldwide.

“Changes in climate are already costing our community money,” Szollosi said. “Look at what happened in Carroll Township this fall. That was the first time public drinking water had to be turned off because of the intensity of toxins [from algae in the water].”

He explained that warmer water, combined with increased runoff from farms, leads to an increase in algae in the water. The increase in runoff is due to more precipitation, he said, which is also a consequence of climate change.

The City of Toledo has also had to increase its water budget this year to keep the drinking water safe from algae.

“We really encourage folks to come out, even ask the tough questions, because obviously this is not without detractors,” Szollosi said. “Basically, it comes down to putting a price on the pollution that comes from coal-burning power plants.”

Szollosi said organizers of the hearing are hoping to have the EPA regional administrator, Susan Hedman, attend the event, but there will be many local leaders, educators and environmental advocates there, too.

Sam Evans is a physics teacher at Maumee High School and a volunteer with the Climate Reality Project. He will be at the hearing to talk about the impact of climate change around the world and how others are addressing the issue.

“Personally, I think climate change is a moral issue,” Evans said. “Once I started to inform myself on this issue, how big the problem is and what the scientists are predicting will occur, it’s like I don’t have a choice. I have to do something about it.”

U.S. government: Closed for business

At the moment, the 2013 government shutdown has taken over headlines and will likely dominate until the budget crisis is resolved. The inability of Congress and President Obama to reach a compromise or demonstrate any shred of leadership has led to uncertainty on Main Street, but the markets have responded relatively tamely.

Budget debates were the driving reason the government closed up shop. While Congress has not been able to pass a formal budget since April 2009 and has kept the government running via continuing resolutions, the implementation of “Obamacare” has caused those on both sides of the aisle to put their respective feet down, which has led us to this.

The Wall Street Journal reports that more than 800,000 federal employees have been furloughed. What this means is that until a budget or a continuing resolution is passed, these employees will be on unpaid leave, although they will likely receive back pay for the time that they were out of work.

CNN and Slate posted fantastic graphs and tables outlining which departments were going to be most affected by the furloughs. Slate reports that NASA, HUD, Department of Education and the EPA will all see more than 90 percent of their employees furloughed, while the SEC, Federal Reserve, State Department and Postal Service will remain untouched.

CNN reports that the IRS will see nearly 86,000 furloughed workers, and almost 59,000 workers associated with National Parks/National Wildlife Refuge Systems will be sent home.

While this shutdown draws attention, let us not forget that shutdowns are not entirely uncommon. The U.S. government has seen 18 total shutdowns since 1977 lasting anywhere from one day to 21 days. An interesting fact: Only under one president did his party control the White House and both chambers of Congress, yet still suffer a shutdown. That was under President Jimmy Carter and it happened five times from 1977-79. A major cause of the shutdown was that the Democrat-controlled house refused to cave to the Senate’s wish to allow Medicaid dollars to be used for abortions. I guess 1970’s Democrats are equal to today’s tea party.

There are two factors that the reader needs to understand. First is that this is all due to a lack of leadership from both parties.

Second is that this is all by design.

President Obama is supposed to unite Congress and help achieve compromise, which he clearly has not. Vice President Biden is the president of the Senate and has done nothing to help achieve compromise either. Speaker of the House John Boehner has drawn his own lines in an attempt to keep the currently embattled Republican Party united. Not one person who was elected to lead is actually doing so.

The reality is that both sides wanted a shutdown so that they could blame the other party. By making the shutdown as apparent to the public as possible, politicians can use the crisis to their advantage.

Before we go making assumptions on how sad and unfortunate this all is, let’s remember the World War II vets who were nearly barricaded out of the World War II Monument. There were federal employees present attempting to keep them out of an outdoor public park, yet we are to believe that any nonessential employees have been furloughed and are suffering? That is a clear and direct message to the American People from Washington: We have just enough money to make your lives miserable until this is resolved.

Ben Treece is a 2009 graduate from the University of Miami (Fla.), BBA International Finance and Marketing. He is a partner with Treece Investment Advisory Corp (www.TreeceInvestments.com) and licensed with FINRA through Treece Financial Services Corp. The above information is the opinion of Ben Treece and should not be construed as investment advice or used without outside verification.

Higgins: Who Should We Fear On 9/11?

“There is no need to sally forth, for it remains true that those things which make us human are, curiously enough, always close at hand. Resolve then, that on this very ground, with small flags waving and tiny blasts of tiny trumpets, we have met the enemy, and not only may he be ours, he may be us.” – Walt Kelly

It’s twelve years since the attacks of 9/11, and as we’ve been reminded of again in recent weeks; we know longer know who our friends are, who our enemies are, and who we can count on for support and assistance.

Perhaps those we should be most fearful of these days however, are the enemies we are most familiar with. While the efforts extreme Islam cannot help but be on our mind; more traditional threats go largely ignored. No, I’m not talking about progressives accusations against Tea Party members, or those clinging to their Bibles and their guns. The enemies of which I speak are those in power who seek even more and the frailties of human nature,

Fear the mall cops of the TSA, one of whom was himself recently arrested in connection with threats made to the LAX airport for the anniversary of 9/11. They have become little more than another bureaucratic nightmare, rife with bloated budgets, fraud, theft, and waste; with no results to show for the pain it inflicts. (The government has recently introduced a proposal to allow frequent travelers to forgo some part of TSA’s charms, but only by paying a fee to the government for the privilege.) And while no one talks about it, many have reduced the amount and the way that they travel rather than place themselves at these mercy of all-too-fallible government agents.

Fear instead the incredibly massive data storage facility in Utah being built by the NSA to store information that we were told that the government wasn’t gathering in the first place; and if they were gathering it (by accident) wouldn’t store. Even in light of 2001′s “Patriot Act”, many believe that it’s illegal and a violation of personal privacy for the NSA to gather and store such information; yet we willingly allow it when they insist on violating our rights in order to protect them.

For those of you not afraid of the TSA or the NSA, how about one of the others in the alphabet group. The IRS is still targeting Conservative groups, the NLRB is filled with former union employees targeting businesses that try to open in ‘Right to Work’ states, and the if for some reason you’ve managed to escape one of those, you can almost count on the fact that OSHA or the EPA has you on its radar screen.

Meanwhile local leaders across the country use this day to whine over generous federal grants which they can no longer compete over for terrorist threats that never occur. The Kansas City area as an example, received over $70 million from the Department of Homeland Security funding since 9/11 for such things as Haz-mat suits, radiation detectors, and rescue boats. Toledo (likewise a hot bed of terrorist activity) received funding during this same period for an armored vehicle for use by a special response team. Both have since been dropped for grant consideration with terrorism budgets to cities and states that were slashed by $780 million in 2011.

Even the 9/11 memorial at the former site of the Twin Towers is quickly becoming as much a symbol of waste as it is of those who were tragically sacrificed. By the time it’s completed, estimates of its total cost now look to exceed $700 million (according to the UK Daily Mail). Not to be outdone in sheer excess however, the annual operating budget of the memorial looks to be around $60 million, $20 million of which is expected to eventually be asked of taxpayers. By comparison, it should be noted that the entire budgets of the museum in Gettysburg and the USS Arizona in Pearl Harbor combined are less than the $12 million security budget required of this new memorial.

No, we should never forget those who made the ultimate sacrifice on 9/11. No we should never relax our vigilance to the potential of terrorist attacks. Perhaps however, we should reserve more than a little of our fear, not for those on foreign shores who once breached ours, but for the abuse of power, waste, and loss of freedom committed by the very government empowered to protect it.

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Just Blowing Smoke

Higgins: The EPA is starving people

Come on now, we’ve all heard these kinds of headlines before, though usually they’re about Republicans forcing grandma to eat dog food in order to pay for her meds, or pushing her wheelchair off the cliff with their latest plan for restructuring Medicare. But in this case, the headline may not be exaggeration.

Now of course some of you are nodding your heads in agreement, recognizing with recent regs on coal-fired electrical power generation, the EPA regulations can have significant, far-reaching, and often unintentional (or at least we hope so) effects. The rest of you are probably shaking your heads and telling yourself that Higgins has finally exposed himself as one of those tin-foil hat conspiracy theorists.

Apparently however, you haven’t been reading your TFP closely, or at least closely enough to remember a financial piece by Ben Treece back on Aug. 9. In it he points out that the price of corn has gone up by 400 percent since January of 2006. Last weekend’s Wall Street Journal took those numbers even deeper and further, showing us some that are more alarming that we previously believed. To understand this, we’re going to have to look at those numbers, but since there’s no serious mathematical calculation even those with a public school education should be able to grasp them.

Let’s start with some big ones. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 gave us a regulation called the “Renewable Fuel Standard,” that mandates that about 13.2 billion gallons of ethanol must be blended in our gasoline this year to create the fuel with either 10 percent or 15 percent ethanol at the pumps. By 2022, this mandate is raised to 36 billion gallons. The WSJ points out to us that, “These quotas are fulfilled almost entirely by corn ethanol. Four of every 10 bushels in 2011 went into the stuff.”

So 40 percent of our corn harvest is used for fuel instead of food and because of the increase on corn demand, the price of food goes up. But that’s not all we pay for. Renewable fuel producers in this country get a 45-cent-per-gallon federal subsidy and have a 54-cent-per-gallon tariff imposed on foreign imports. In fact, according to a Reuters piece on recent congressional voting to end this subsidy, the ethanol industry receives a $6 billion annual subsidy for turning corn into fuel. But at what cost?

According to the energy future coalition, a United Nations foundation that supports its production, ethanol costs about $1 to $1.20 per gallon when corn’s at $2 per bushel, and when corn goes up $1 per bushel, it adds 35 cents per gallon to ethanol. So with corn at $8, the price of ethanol is about $3.20 per gallon (at least). Unfortunately however, ethanol produces only about 65 percent of the energy of its equivalent in gasoline. So even when the price is equal, more must be used to travel the same distance. Add to this the astonishing fact that for all the hype related to its production, ethanol accounts for “less than 1% of world-wide transportation fuel.”

But none of this tells the food side of the equation. First and foremost, the U.S. contributes 60 percent to the world’s corn exports. This not only provides a balance of trade item for the U.S. (to help pay for those Chinese-manufactured goods), but it also normally provides a low-cost food source for both animals and people around the world. With the dramatic increases in the price of corn, feed for raising livestock is up and so is the meat produced. High fructose corn syrup likewise goes up; and with the number of food items this includes, there’s will be a substantial impact on grocery bills in the days ahead. And of course there’s the increased cost of corn itself for consumption.

Now organizations around the world from the World Trade Organization to the World Bank have signed recommendations to remove all subsidies or mandates for biofuels to bring down food costs. The EPA has so far rejected such requests; and the president, who has the power to overrule the EPA, has likewise failed to act during an election year when farm states like Iowa could be critical to a re-election campaign.

With the drought of 2012 now fully realized, the Department of Agriculture has revised its projected corn harvest down by 10.8 billion bushels, or 13 percent. With a mandated portion of what’s left set aside for a government-subsidized fuel whose contribution is questionable, if not statistically insignificant, this cannot help but mean that there will be less corn to feed the world. The EPA has not seen fit to even consider walking back this unnecessary and harmful mandate, even in the face of a potential world food shortage in 2012. One cannot help but conclude therefore, that the EPA is OK with starving people.